


Things Fall Apart

by wombuttress



Series: Poor Communication Kills [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 20:49:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7122109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wombuttress/pseuds/wombuttress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Corypheus is defeated, the wedding date is set, and all is well at Skyhold. Until Dorian has business in Tevinter, and Hathorn regrettably continues to be himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things Fall Apart

Hathorn Lavellan had recently achieved a new level of remarkability.

Not only had he imploded an ancient darkspawn magister with his magical glowing hand, on a bunch of floating rocks, he had even managed to cleverly quip as he did so.

Truly, this was the mark of the ultimate hero.

Now there was a big party being thrown in his honor, and he had to admit, between everyone congratulating him and telling him how great and heroic he was, and the food and alcohol flowing freely, he was feeling pretty good about himself.

He heard the congratulations of his friends and admirers. He ate and drank. He danced with his fiancé. He swanned past the bowing faithful, arm in arm with his evil Tevinter magister lover, and disappeared up to his quarters.

He and Dorian had a Moment, which Hathorn was getting better at having. Then they had sex, which Hathorn had always been good at having.

Then, after the sex, in blissful post-coital snuggling, Dorian said: “Now that all this is over…what do you think of me going back to Tevinter for a while?”

Hathorn lay silently, staring at the ceiling.

“I know it’s not a good time to mention it…but it’s been on my mind a lot lately, and, well…” Dorian trailed off.

What Hathorn wanted to do was whine about Dorian bringing this up _now._ He wanted to, at very least, bring up his worries about the wedding—would they postpone? Go ahead with the planned summer date? Or what?

But, he had been with Dorian for a few years now, and though Hathorn was notoriously terrible at dating—and, in fact, people in general—he had picked up on a few cues on how a Good Boyfriend out to behave.

A Good Boyfriend would not make it all about himself. A Good Boyfriend would be Supportive. A Good Boyfriend would feverishly uphold his beloved in anything he wished to do—after all, had Dorian not spent the last three years of his life following Hathorn around on his ridiculous, dangerous quests for the fate of Thedas?

Hathorn would be a Good Boyfriend.

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said, going for his best Supportive Tone. “Your country needs you.”

“Oh,” Dorian said, not sounding as enthused as Hathorn hoped. Then again, Hathorn was pretty terrible at reading tone. “Do you really think so?”

“Of course,” Hathorn continued in the Supportive Tone.

“Well,” the mage said. “Well, that’s very good.”

Hathorn decided not to endanger himself more by saying anything further.

\--

Dorian left a few weeks after that.

Hathorn kissed him goodbye, peaceably Supportive, because he was being a Good Boyfriend. He watched Dorian disappear on the horizon until he could not distinguished which grey blur in the distance was Dorian. Then he stayed out on the balcony for the rest of the night, still staring after him, and didn’t remember to go inside and get out of the cold until Sera forcibly shoved him back inside.

\--

Dorian had important business in Tevinter. He was going to be a maverick, hotshot politician. He was going to _change_ things.

This would be a lot easier if he could bloody concentrate on any of it.

Oh, sure, Hathorn loved him. He was just…bad at expressing it. But they’d been through that! They’d discussed it! They were in a committed relationship, they had _worked through_ their communication issues.

If only that were so easy to remember a thousand miles away from him, when Hathorn wasn’t there to constantly shower Dorian with gifts and attention and lavish displays of ostentation.

During conventions of the Magisterium, Dorian more and more felt his mind drifting away from the proceedings and dwelling on Hathorn Fucking Lavellan. Hathorn loved him, surely. Maybe he didn’t habitually _say_ so, but that didn’t make any less true.

Well, the awful snakey voice in Dorian’s mind said, if Hathorn loved him so much, why didn’t he write?

Dorian snorted to himself. Because he _couldn’t write._ Obviously. What an idiotic question.

….if Hathorn loved him so much, _why didn’t he learn to write?_

Which was nonsensical. Hathorn hadn’t bothered to learn to write for the sake of being the most powerful man in Thedas. He staunchly refused to better himself for kings and empresses and mighty generals. Why would he bother to do it for Dorian?

Because he was supposed to be in _love_ with him, damn it. Why couldn’t the bloody elf learn to write?!

Or, Dorian thought, at least get Varric or Sera to write for him. He’d done that much before.

(Then again, he thought—did he really want Varric or Sera privy to his and Hathorn’s conversations?

No. No no no. Definitely not. No.)

If Hathorn _really_ loved him so much, why did he seem so blasé about Dorian leaving for an extended time? At the time, Dorian had charitably put it down to Hathorn being Supportive.

But now, he was not so sure.

After all, shouldn’t he be at least a little grieved to see Dorian go? Miss him at least a little? Had that really been good-natured support in his tone? Or was he perhaps genuinely glad to be rid of him?

Hathorn was the most ridiculously beautiful man Dorian had ever met. Hathorn knew it, and so did everyone around him. On top of that, Hathorn was the Inquisitor, the wealthiest, most powerful man in Thedas. He could have anyone. Literally, anyone.

Maybe he’d grown bored of Dorian after their years together. Maybe Dorian had been reading too much into it all along. Maybe something had changed, and Dorian, foolish, besotted romantic that he was, simply hadn’t noticed. Maybe…maybe…maybe—

Oh, Void, he wasn’t even paying a little bit of attention to the cabinet meeting now. He drummed his fingers on the table in consternation.

\--

Dorian broke down and wrote him first, trusting that someone trustworthy would read it to him.

Dorian, loquacious as ever, filled three sheets of parchments with his tight, close-written hand. He didn’t even have all that much to say, but the words just wouldn’t stop. He wished he could be chattering to Hathorn in person. Hathorn wouldn’t respond much, but he would hum attentively and stroke his fingers through Dorian’s hair, and that, Dorian had to say, was objectively the best feeling in the world.

A couple (agonizing) weeks later, he finally received his reply. It was far, far less than a page, and obviously in Sera’s spiky, near-incomprehensible handwriting.

_Dorian,_

_Glad to hear you are doing well. Mostly spending time clearing out bandits in Hinterlands. Very boring. Without you and Solas, have to take Vivienne along or do without a mage. Entire experience is intolerable. ~~Fairly sure she and Sera are doing some bizarre version of flirting.~~ **we most certainly are not, you tosser!**_

_All my love,_

_Hathorn Lavellan_

Three lines. Three bloody lines! Curse Hathorn and his bloody terribly incapacity with words of any sort. Curse him and his terribly handsome face, Dorian thought, nearly in tears.

He decided not to write again.

\--

Dorian finally returned for a visit a few months later.

Hathorn spent the entire week leading up to his arrival anxiously waiting on the balcony for at least an hour a day.

But when Dorian finally did arrive, he was unusually agitated, distant.

It was over dinner that it happened.

“You know what,” he said impulsively. “We should just call it off.”

Hathorn paused with a forkful of druffalo halfway to his mouth. “Call what off?”

“All of it. You and me. Us.”

Hathorn slowly folded his hands in front of him on the table. He stared down at his plate for a long moment. “If,” he managed, eventually, “that’s how you really feel…then…I suppose…we should.”

“Oh, is that it, then?” Dorian said icily. “Just ‘ _alright’?_ You suppose so? And that’s—that’s it?”

Hathorn took a long time to answer again. “If that’s how you want it to be.”

“Well,” Dorian said. “Well.” He stood abruptly, knocking his chair. “Well. Alright then.”

And he was gone.

\--

Sera came by later.

“Hey, Ser Lordybloomers,” she said. “What’s Magister Sparklefingers doing, leaving so suddenly again? Why weren’t you there? You had some of us worried.”

Hathorn didn’t respond, staring out the window. Sera snapped her fingers. “Oy! You in there?”

Hathorn slowly poured himself back into his body. “Oh,” he said. “We broke up.”

Sera’s jaw dropped. “Wot—just like that?”

“Just like that,” Hathorn said.

“Aw, shite.” Sera hesitated, and then, with great hesitant confusion, gave him a warm, awkward hug. This was a complete role reversal. Awkward hugs were Hathorn's usual purvey. “Well…plenty of fish in the sea, right?”

Hathorn resumed staring out the window.

“Hey,” she said. “You alright, there?”

“Yes,” Hathorn replied. “Just fine.”

\--

It quickly became apparent that whatever Hathorn was, ‘fine’ was not it.

It began with the archery practice. Lace Harding had challenged him to a friendly competition. Everyone knew Hathorn couldn’t resist a competition.

Harding shot thrice, getting successively closer to the bullseye every time. She grinned. “Beat that.”

Hathorn shrugged. “Sure.”

His first arrow hit the very edge of the white. His next arrow sailed clean over the target by at least a meter. His third, somehow, corkscrewed out of the way, became caught in the wind, and struck the broad side of Blackwall’s barn, a full 180 degrees behind them.

Harding gaped. Everyone gaped. A few of the pigeons roosting in the gaps in the walls gaped.

Nobody had seen Hathorn miss a shot. Not since the time he had gotten drunk with the Iron Bull, and climbed onto a sleeping Ferelden Frostback, woken it, and attempted to shoot a target at the top of a mountain from its airborne back.

He’d only missed by a couple inches, and only because he’d fallen off.

Harding frowned, and reached up to feel his forehead. “You alright there, Inquisitor? Normally you would have split all three of my arrows, just to show off.”

He neatly stepped away from her. “Just tired,” he said. “I think Josephine needs me for something. Excuse me.”

It turned out that he shouldn’t have lied, because karmically, Josephine _did_ turn out to need him for something, and he was forced into making polite small talk with a gaggle of Antivan nobles for the entire rest of the evening.

Normally, Josephine thought, he would have made at least some kind of token effort. But today Hathorn replied entirely with grunts. Not even particularly indicative, conversational grunts that could almost count as talking. Completely neutral grunts. Grunts that you couldn’t glean a single speck of meaning from.

It took all of Josephine’s diplomatic skills to make up for him. Luckily, Inquisitor Management was something she had quite a lot of practice with.

He didn’t even seem to have the heart for sitting in judgement. It had always been his favorite pastime. He loved watching miserable shemlen nobles grovel before him.

But today, his slouch was even more pronounced than usual, his fist digging into his cheek. Josephine’s words washed over him like a stale summer breeze.

“Inquisitor?” He snapped out of it. “What is your judgement?”

“Oh, er,” he said. “Oh, I don’t know. Beheading.”

Josephine stared politely from behind her clipboard. “Are you certain?” she said, levelly. “For a minor traffic violation?”

“Oh. Then…not beheading. Just let him go, then.”

Josephine made a note. “Bring in the next to be judged. Marquise Rousseau has committed a number of atrocities against both law and Maker, including…”

Hathorn listened to the long list, nodding occasionally.

Apparently Josephine had stopped talking at some point, because she was snapping her fingers for his attention.

“Oh, right, um,” he said. “Let’s see. I don’t know. Feed her to Hen’Farel.”

Hen’Farel was a rather elderly direwolf, gifted to Hathorn some years ago by a gaggle of hopeful suitors. He’d gotten pretty fat since Hathorn had become his doting owner, and somewhat melancholy ever since Solas had disappeared and deprived Hen’Farel of his favorite hobby of Staring Ominously At Solas. He was the slowest, most docile creature to ever carry the nominal title of ‘wolf’ and had probably never chased a fennec in his life. How he’d survived in the wild prior to becoming a pet was anyone’s guess.

‘Being fed to Hen’Farel’ had consequently become slang for receiving a slap on the wrist.

The Marquise didn’t seem to know that, though, as she burst into tears, throwing herself on the floor before the throne, sobbing and beating the flagstones.

Josephine expertly resisted vocalizing her consternation. “Are you…quite…certain of that judgement…Inquisitor?”

Hathorn watched the woman wail. “I don’t know. She seems pretty sorry for whatever she did. You can just let her go.”

The day continued in that vein. Hathorn then sentenced a war criminal to community service picking trash off the side of the road, a repeat-offender litterer to be thrown off the side of the mountain (with pillows strapped on, at Josephine’s insistence), and seemed only vaguely aware that Blackwall had turned out to actually be Thom Rainier.

Then again, Josephine wasn’t entirely sure that Hathorn knew who Blackwall was in the first place.

The next evening Josephine climbed the (surely _miles)_ of stairs up to Leliana’s creepy crow tower.

“Leliana,” Josephine said, slightly out of breath. “There is something I must discuss with you.”

“The Inquisitor,” Leliana surmised.

“Yes! He isn’t himself! Did you hear about the judgement yesterday?”

“Oh, yes. I saw that litterer tumbling down the mountain this morning. It was pretty funny.”

“That isn’t the point,” Josephine said. “Something is _wrong.”_

“I know,” Leliana sighed, going to stand by the window, arms crossed. “Look, there, in the distance. You see him?”

“Is that…the Inquisitor? Sitting on the roof of the tavern?”

“Not just sitting. _Roosting._ He’s been up there all day. And all last night, I think.”

“Oh, no. Oh, this is bad. He always roosts when he’s upset.”

“I know.” Leliana nodded. “Cassandra was here only a few hours ago, nearly in tears. Apparently he hasn’t made a single annoying comment to her in _weeks._ Hasn’t stood around facetiously asking her advice. Hasn’t dragged her along on a long annoying road trip to any bogs.” Leliana shook her head. “Poor dear. She’s lost the one rock-solid constant in her life. I don't think she knows how to function without the Inquisitor harassing her all the time."

“This is even worse than I thought,” Josephine said, shaking her head.

“We have to call a meeting. Figure out what to do about this.”

“Won’t he notice if everyone has a meeting without him?”

They looked out at where Hathorn was on the roof, gargoyle-like.

“No,” Leliana said. “Definitely not.”

\--

Almost the entire remaining leadership of the Inquisition crammed themselves into the tavern, to discuss.

“This clearly cannot continue!” Cassandra said, stabbing a knife into the table before her. She often did this when she was upset.

“No. Obviously not.” Leliana swooped ominously along the edge of the room. “So, we must decide what to do.”

“First we should figure out what’s wrong,” Josephine, taking minutes, suggested.               

“Are you all completely thick?” Sera said, so aghast that she removed her booted feet from the table. “You all _really_ have no idea?”

The entire inner circle of the Inquisition glanced at each other, then back at Sera. They shook their heads. Cassandra stabbed another couple knives into the wall.

“Ugh!” Sera rolled her eyes. “Well, look, all of you can knock it off! Give him some space, alright? If he wants to keep this to himself, let him. Not everything has to be the entire world’s business!”

She glared around the room. Cole slowly raised his hand. “I—” he began.

Sera cut him off. “Oh no you don’t you weird…spirit…demon…boy thing. You are _not '_ helping'. Let’s go—I don’t know—throw some cabbages off the roof or something, that’s the sort of thing you like to do.”

She seized Cole by the back of his shirt and stomped off. “Only if it helps,” he corrected, but did not resist the forced egress.

The remainder of the Inquisition leadership stared dumbly after the only two people who could have potentially had any useful insight. Cassandra made a noise of absolute disgust and went around the room retrieving all the knives she had stabbed into various surfaces over the course of the meeting.

“Well, uh,” the Iron Bull put in, “If my suspicions are correct, I can’t really offer anything other than rebound sex. Are we—gonna vote on me offering the Inquisitor rebound sex?”

“I vote no,” said Cullen, who was only there because Leliana and Josephine had made him. “Especially after the last time.”

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you staring, Curly.”

“Enough of this!” Cassandra stabbed all her knives into the table at once. “Clearly I am the only one here who sees what needs to be done! _I_ will take care of this!”

Cassandra stormed out of the room, stomping so hard that the entire tavern rattled.

The rest of the meeting quickly dissolved into a round of Wicked Grace, during which Iron Bull lost his prosthetic fingers, Blackwall lost his beard, Cullen lost not only his clothes, but half his hair.

\--

That night, it rained heavily, thunder rolling through the towers of Skyhold.

Hathorn awoke suddenly from a fitful sleep, to see a looming figure illuminated briefly by a flash of lightning. He gave a manly, dignified little shriek.

Cassandra’s eyes flashed maniacally. This is it, though Hathorn. This was how Cassandra was finally going to murder him.

She seized him by the shoulders, and said, in a measured, calm tone of voice that communicated expertly just how level-headed she was being, “ _What in the Void has gotten into you?!”_

Hathorn stared at her like a halla in magelight. She shook him slightly. “The roosting! The brooding!! The weary sighs and distraction!!! It is driving me _mad!!!!”_

Hathorn slowly reached up to remove Cassandra’s hands from his shoulders. “Don’t be ridiculous, Cassandra,” he said. “Everything is fine.”

“Fine?! Fine!! How can anything possibly be fine?!?! You haven’t made an annoying comment in my direction in over a month! How do you manage to continue to annoy me while _not annoying me?!_ How do you do it? Is it blood magic?”

“It’s not blood magic,” he said, mystified.

“Aaaargh!!!”

Hathorn brushed his fingers through his normally-luxurious hair, which he hadn’t washed in over a month now. “Look, Cassandra, I understand your concern,” he said. “Actually, no, I do not. Because there is nothing at all to be concerned about. I am as all-powerful and commanding as ever. And—and—” He slowly began to whither under Cassandra’s steely gaze. “And, if there was something wrong, why should you care when we are not friends and you don’t even like me?”

Cassandra’s rock-hard stare did not abate.

“And if I may add,” he said tartly, “considering that you do not like me and we are not friends, and I am _supposed_ to be your superior, the fact that you’ve come in here so brazenly is singularly rude, and…I won’t…stand for it, and—”

His breath hitched. "And..."

He burst into tears. “And I miss _Do-ho-ho-riaaan.”_

Hathorn threw himself sobbing into Cassandra’s arms.

So, Cassandra thought. This is what my life has come to. Sitting fully armored in a silk bed flanked by nude golden Qunari men, consoling the most powerful man in Thedas, who is getting snot all over my breastplate.

“There, there,” she said. She patted his head. Her hand came away oily.

Sweet Maker, she thought. He really is a mess. I should really fetch Sera. Or Cole. Or…somebody. Anybody.

But Hathorn did not let go, and somehow, over the course of three hours of sobbing and sniffling, Cassandra gleaned the general outline of the situation.

When he had calmed down somewhat—or maybe tired himself out—Cassandra gently peeled him off, giving him an awkward pat on the shoulder. “I’ll take care of this,” she said.

Hathorn stared red-eyed at her and gave a huge sniff. “Really?”

“I see what must be done, Inquisitor,” she said, full of resolve, “and I do it.”

\--

Varric was woken— _again—_ by an incessant pounding at his door.

“What?” he demanded, answering the door with his robe half-on. “Er…Seeker. Wasn’t expecting you.”

“Who were you expecting, then?”

“Uh,” Varric rubbed the back of his head. “To tell the truth, the Inquisitor. Here to demand I write something for him in the middle of the night. Again.”

“The Inquisitor is currently sniffling in bed, drinking some calming herbal tea, which I had absolutely nothing to do with,” Cassandra said. “ _I_ am here to demand you write something for him in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, perfect,” Varric said. “Is it something to do with his relationship, I wonder?”

“That’s correct.”

“Great. Excellent. Varric Tethras, chronicler of everyone’s romantic drama.”

“I read your Tale of the Champion,” Cassandra snorted. “That’s exactly what you are.”

“Okay, okay. Fair point.” He sighed and poured himself some leftover coffee. “So, what should I write?”

\--

Sera met Dorian at the gates of Skyhold, arms crossed, looking very put out.

“About right damn time _,”_ she said huffily, seizing him by one of his extraneous belts and dragging him along. “Do you have any idea what a right nightmare it’s been here since you left? It’s worse than the Fade. And you _know_ how much I like the Fade, Dorian!”

Dorian knew how much Sera liked the Fade. “So,” he said, waving around the seven copies of the same letter he had recently received, from sources as varied as messenger, courier crow, wind spell, and enchanted horse. “I suppose this story about the ravening bogbeast of Tackluk, who can only be defeated by my special brand of mustacho’d magic, isn’t actually true?”

“Wot, that? Course not, what kind of gullible tosser are you?”

The hopeful kind looking for any excuse, Dorian thought miserably. He’d spend the entire past month completely unable to think about anything except what a massive idiot he’d been to throw away the best thing in his life on an impulsive, jealous whim. It was highly unusual for his internal monologue to run so self-negatively. By this point, he was well and truly desperate.

“I thought not,” he said blithely.

“Look, Sparkles, you don’t get it.” Sera stopped and faced him, eyes wild. “He’s _roosting,_ Dorian. Roosting! He does it for days at a time! Nobody can get through to him! Varric got him drunk, and you know what he did? Recited some terrible poetry and immediately fell asleep at the table! All he does is stare into the distance and _roost._ Can you just talk to him?”

“What, Lavellan?” Dorian snorted, heart clenching so hard it actually hurt. “Oh,  I’ll believe _that_. Him, expressing an emotion! The Veil will come down before that day comes.”

Sera made a face and pointed, as though saying: _See? See what you did?_

Skyhold had changed since Dorian had last been there. For one thing, it now resembled an inverted hedgehog.

“Are those…arrows?” Dorian marveled. They sprouted from every exposed surface like spines. “Did we get attacked?”

“They’re from archery practice. You _see?”_

Dorian was beginning to see.

Hathorn himself, though, was nowhere in sight. That was uncharacteristic. Hathorn delighted in parading around his castle, decked to the nines, overseeing things and Flaunting.

Sera whistled loudly through her fingers. At her call, the Iron Bull appeared out of the gates of the inner keep, holding the Inquisitor aloft by one arm. “Got ‘im,” Bull said.

Hathorn squirmed. It was adorable. It was making Dorian’s heart hurt. “Put me down!” Hathorn demanded, dangling.

“No can do, boss.” Bull strode down the stairs and dropped the elf several feet above the ground, and then discretely bolted along with Sera out of sight. For such a large man, Bull could _really_ bolt.

The courtyard was curiously deserted for this time of day.

Hathorn fussed and grumbled, righting himself. It was only when he straightened that he saw Dorian standing right in front of him.

He looked a complete mess. Had Iron Bull literally just peeled him out of bed? It was late afternoon. Hathorn didn’t _nap._ He barely slept! And these days it looked like he hardly groomed, either. Or bathed.

That was wrong. Hathorn always had time to groom. Dorian began to quietly panic. What had he done?”

Hathorn stared blankly at him for several seconds. Then, he pushed his stringy curtain of hair (his hair! _Stringy!_ How could this have happened?!)  out of his face, clasped his hands behind his back, and cleared his throat. “Hello,” he said stoically. “Dorian,” he added.

“Andraste’s sweet knickers,” Dorian said. “You’re a wreck.”

Hathorn cleared his throat again, averting his eyes even harder than before. “Was there something you forgot to take with you?”

Dorian shook his head, aghast. “You’re an absolute mess. You’ve turned this castle into a pincushion. You have _Sera_ worried. And this is all…because of me?”

Hathorn stared into the middle distance for an extended period of time. All of Skyhold, hiding and sneakily observing the exchange, held its breath. “Yes,” Hathorn said finally.

Dorian cracked like old paint. “Oh, amatus.” He sank to his knees, bowing his head, with just the right touch of dramatics. Hathorn stood stock still and rigid, the look on his face akin to the one Varric regularly wore when forced to face one of the local dragons that Hathorn made a habit to hunt. Dorian’s shoulders hitched, and he put his arms around Hathorn’s legs. “I’ve been the world’s most atrocious fool, and you would be right to never forgive me.”

“No I wouldn’t,” Hathorn blurted, bewildered, with absolutely no idea what was going on. His instinct was to attempt an escape, but he couldn’t with Dorian hugging his legs. Perhaps he’d planned it that way. “Please get up,” he said desperately.

Dorian got up, and Hathorn prepared to flee, but found that now that Dorian was looking at him with _those eyes,_ he could do nothing but stare back into them.

“I realize,” the mage said heavily, “that I have probably ruined everything, and caused immeasurable pointless suffering, and you would be perfectly within your rights to send me away and find yourself someone better, someone less postursome, less dramatic, and less—and less insecure. Andraste knows you have no shortage of offers, and should you—”

“Please,” Hathorn said. “Stop talking.” It took him a little while to speak after that, but then speak he did. In fact, he hardly seemed able to stop. “You were right, you were right all along. I’m no good for you, or anyone. I can’t write to you. I can barely _talk_ to you. All I can do is listen, and, and, shoot arrows. That’s all I’m good for. I’m just waiting for everyone to realize what a fraud I am. I don’t know what they all did to get you here, but they shouldn’t have. I’m sorry, Dorian, to have wasted your time yet again. You were the best thing that ever happened to me, and all I ever did was hurt you. You were right to leave, and I’m sorry—

“Stop being sorry!” Dorian snapped. “You—you damned idiot, don’t you realize that you have it all backwards? That you were the best thing that ever happened to _me?_ That I don’t _want_ to give you up, that I never did? _”_ I won’t stand for this, you know!” Dorian continued, increasingly cantankerous. "I love you, you bastard, and you’re not getting rid of me that easily!”

“I love you, too,” Hathorn said—earnestly, and full of fear.

“Well, good!” Dorian slammed his staff on the ground, sending sparks of necromantic energy flying. “Good! Then we both understand each other, and we can have enough of this _nonsense,_ and we can just…we can just…” He trailed off. “Oh, that’s…that’s the first time you’ve ever said that. Out loud. Directly.”

And he looked at him with such tender awe that Hathorn had absolutely no choice but to kiss him.

(A few minutes later, Dorian insisted that Hathorn have a damn bath and let Dorian wash his hair for him.)

And so it was, that all of Skyhold breathed a sigh of immeasurable relief. The roosting was really starting to freak everyone out.

Jim the intern was sent about the battlements to collect all the arrows.

Iron Bull and Sera shared a victory high-five so powerful that Sera was sent sailing clear over the curtain wall.

Varric recorded every word of the exchange and published a fictionalized version in his romance serial. It was a wild success. Hathorn even eventually forgave him.

Cassandra regained a measure of sanity and calm when Hathorn resumed his daily pestering. As he oh-so-innocently requested her advice for the fifth time that hour, she grit her teeth, and knew in her heart that all was well.

Dorian could eventually no longer delay his business in Tevinter, but he gave Hathorn a two-way communication crystal. “No more fuckups from now on,” he said firmly. “After all, poor communication kills.” Hathorn fervently agreed.

\--

“So,” Sera said, her legs dangling off the roof. “That worked out alright.”

“More or less,” Hathorn agreed.

“So…smooth sailing from here on out, right?” she grinned. “Although, not sure how you’re going to hold that crystal, with at least one hand down your pants—”

“Don’t be gross, Sera. Obviously I will manage it somehow. I _am_ the Inquisitor.”

“Pft. Right you are. Don’t get too high up on that horse.”

“I ride a hart,” Hathorn pointed out.

Sera sighed and lay back. “Never change, Ser Lordybloomers.”

They watched the clouds pass for a while.

“But you’re right,” Hathorn said eventually. “I think everything will be fine from now on.” The anchor flared slightly, and he hid it behind his head, along with the slight twitch of pain. “Smooth sailing. For sure.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> why is hen'farel mentioned in this fic and the first fic, but not the middle three? because-- (throws smoke bomb on the ground and disappears)
> 
> [my tumblr](http://wombuttress.tumblr.com/)   
>  [my oc blog. more hathorn here](http://pile-of-dragon-filth.tumblr.com/tagged/hathorn%20lavellan)


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